Geoff Hoon 'said that Dr Kelly was no martyr'

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, was at the centre of a new controversy last night after he was reported to have said that Dr David Kelly was "no martyr".

The Government has insisted that it will not prejudge Lord Hutton's report on the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death, which will be published next Wednesday.

However, Mr Hoon is reported in today's Sunday Times to have told friends: "Good people like Richard Hatfield [the MoD's personnel director] and Pam Teare [the ministry's communications director] had their reputations traduced. Why? Because of this man's actions. What if they had killed themselves?"

He is also reported to have described the Kelly family lawyers as "diabolical". Mr Hoon is said to believe they had been "grandstanding" and "looking to make headlines".

Friends of Mr Hoon were reported to have said that Dr Kelly killed himself because he was under pressure after lying about his contacts with journalists to the inquiry by the Commons foreign affairs select committee.

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The MoD declined several requests by The Telegraph to discuss the claims last night or to issue a denial.

The remarks attributed to Mr Hoon are likely to cause the Government particular political embarrassment, following the row over an earlier briefing to journalists by the Prime Minister's spokesman, Tom Kelly, that Dr Kelly was a "Walter Mitty character".

The Government was savagely criticised for this slur in the final submission to the Hutton Inquiry by Jeremy Gompertz, QC, the barrister for the Kelly family.

Mr Gompertz said that Dr Kelly's widow and his family had also been "deeply hurt and angered" by the evidence of Mr Hatfield.

The allegation that the Mr Hoon has privately blackened the name of Dr Kelly will compound his deepening political difficulties. Mr Hoon admitted on Friday that he may have to resign if he is criticised by the Hutton report.

In a separate row, Samantha Roberts, the widow of Sergeant Steven Roberts, a tank commander who was killed in Iraq, allegedly because of a shortage of body armour, has called for Mr Hoon to quit. Last night, Mr Hoon's troubles worsened when a second Iraq war widow blamed the death of her husband on avoidable shortages of equipment.

Tracey Pritchard said that her husband was killed when his vehicle was ambushed and riddled with machinegun fire. She claimed that three days earlier her husband, Dewi Pritchard, a Territorial Army corporal, complained that the vehicle - a Nissan Patrol - offered him and his colleagues no protection from attack.

Mrs Pritchard, 55, told the Mail on Sunday: "Dewi put his life on the line and he deserved to have been properly protected. Dewi wasn't a person who was quick to complain but he told me he was concerned for his safety. He said that the vehicles they had out there were not fit for the purpose given the kind of hostility they were facing."

Meanwhile, a British soldier injured in an accident in Iraq last night demanded to know whether his leg had been amputated merely because of a lack of medical equipment to save it.

MPs are investigating claims that Army doctors would not have removed Sergeant Albert Thomson's leg if they had had the appropriate surgical equipment.

The Ministry of Defence rejected the claims and insisted that there was adequate medical equipment in the field when Sergeant Thomson was treated.